SPECIAL INTEREST
FACTIONS — NOT ENVIRONMENTALISTS— SAY "NO" TO NECESSITY AT WARD VALLEY:

There
is no doubt that the proposed Ward Valley disposal facility, as licensed
and regulated by the California Department of Health Services, will
safely isolate low-level radioactive waste. Assurances of safety are
provided by California's exhaustive licensing process, regulations and
license conditions, the joint state-federal environmental impact review,
the validation of the license and Environmental Impact Report by California's
courts, the Interior Department's 1993 Supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement, and by the favorable report of a National Academy of Sciences
committee.

Following
release of the Academy's Ward Valley report two years ago, Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who had commissioned the NAS review, said:

I've
never felt that being an environmentalist means saying "no" to
necessity. The National Academy of Sciences says it's safe, so
I'm prepared to go ahead with it.

But,
two years later, Interior has failed to transfer federal lands in Ward
Valley to California. Instead, the White House relieved Secretary Babbitt
of responsibility for the land transfer and gave it to Deputy Secretary
John Garamendi who has imposed new delays. It is now almost five years
since California formally requested the land transfer.

Radioactive
materials serve the community's interests in medical and scientific
research, in the development and manufacture of pharmaceuticals, in
the production of electricity, numerous other industrial manufacturing
activities, and in medical diagnosis and treatment. Ward Valley is vital
infrastructure to enable these beneficial activities to continue.

The
federal Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act was fashioned by environmentalists
including former Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt and former Arizona Congressman
Morris Udall. Why, then, is there opposition to the safe Ward Valley
disposal facility which is sanctioned by a federal law with this sterling
environmental pedigree and supported and needed by universities, industries,
electric utilities, medical centers, and research organizations at the
center of society's economic and institutional life? Instead of federal
cooperation, we find that the office of the Interior Deputy Secretary
maintains and uses a Ward Valley opponents' mailing list (as revealed
by a Freedom of Information Act request) and disseminates misinformation
provided by opponents. He ignores the scientific advice of Interior's
own U.S. Geological Survey and data compiled by the U.S. Department
of Energy. He undermines implementation of the federal Act by demanding
new studies. He then threatens to block California's plan to do the
studies, and says they should be done by his agency despite its lack
of both expertise and legislative authority. He has failed to consult
with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission or specified wherein he
believes the project fails to meet NRC regulations.

What
drives the opposition reflected in federal inaction and obstruction?

Ideological Opposition
to the Use of Radioactivity
and to the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act

Opposition
groups act on the theory that if they can block safe disposal of low-level
waste, they can block all uses of radioactive materials. The opposition
to Ward Valley and proposed disposal facilities in other states is driven
by ideological opposition to any beneficial use of radioactivity by
society — not by a concern for safe disposal of the waste byproducts.
Some opposition groups admit to this objective. For example:

Greenpeace, in a solicitation letter from its Executive Director
in the spring of 1995:

There
is only one answer -- turn off the faucet; stop producing
nuclear waste. Period. (Emphasis in the original.)

The
Washington DC based Nuclear Information Resource Service, in
a fundraising letter from its Executive Director dated October 1994:

We've
helped stop every proposed radioactive waste dump for the past
several years. Federal law said that every state should have had
a dump to send its waste to by December 31, 1992. Federal law
was wrong and grassroots activists were right. No new dumps are
operating, and, as long as radioactive waste generation continues,
forever exacerbating the problem, we will work to ensure that
no new dumps ever operate.(Emphasis added.)

And Greenpeace,
again, in a handout distributed while picketing a Cal Rad conference
in San Diego in 1992:

Developing
alternatives to radionuclides currently used in medicine and industry
must be a priority.

Actions
also reveal motivations. The Committee to Bridge the Gap spent
four years (1992-1996) trying to convince California's Legislature and
Courts that the Department of Health Services followed inadequate procedures
for licensing organizations to use radioactive materials. Fortunately,
both the Legislature and the Courts rejected this argument. Had CBG's
efforts succeeded, not only would the Ward Valley license have been
invalidated but so would over 2,000 radioactive materials licenses in
California for hospitals, universities, industries, etc.

Special Interest
Factions, not Environmentalists

Ward
Valley opposition groups masquerade as environmentalists; but they are
nothing more than special interest factions as defined by James Madison
in the Federalist Papers:

By
a faction, I understand a number of citizens who are united and
actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse
to the rights of the other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate
interests of the community.(Emphasis added.)

Federal officials
should not be swayed by these factions.

If "…the Enemy of
Our Time is Inaction," Then the Time for Action is Now.

In
his State of the Union Message to Congress last February, President
Clinton said, "…the enemy of our time is inaction." Following release
of the NAS report in May, 1995, California Governor Pete Wilson said,
"It is time to act." In the statements of President Clinton, Governor
Wilson, and Secretary Babbitt there is more than enough common ground
to agree that prompt Congressional transfer of the Ward Valley lands
to the State of California is in the best interests of the environment,
the nation, and the states directly affected — even if the special interest
factions oppose it.